[News Terms] Cho Kuk: "After Lame Duck, 'Dead Duck' Is the Goal"

"A Hopeless Person"... Power Vacuum More Serious Than Lame Duck
"Must Be Made a Political Incompetent, Rhee Syngman Resigned Before Impeachment"

'Dead duck' means "a person with no prospects" in English. While 'lame duck' refers to the power leakage phenomenon at the end of a term, dead duck is a term that denotes a more severe power vacuum situation than lame duck.

The term is said to have originated from a 19th-century Western proverb, "Don't waste flour on a dead duck." Therefore, dead duck refers to a failed policy or situation that is certain to fail.

Cho Kuk, leader of the Cho Kuk Innovation Party (center of the second row in the photo), is speaking on the afternoon of the 14th at Chungjang-ro, Dong-gu, Gwangju.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

In the United States, it is used to mean a person whose political life is over, a hopeless figure, or a policy that has failed or is certain to fail. It is an expression that appears when explaining changes in power and helplessness in political situations. When the implementation of a policy is halted or its effect becomes minimal, it is sometimes described as a dead duck.

On the 19th, Jo Guk, leader of the Jo Guk Innovation Party, stated, "Primarily, our goal is to make the Yoon Seok-yeol administration a lame duck, and secondly, to make it a dead duck."

On that day, after visiting the '10·29 Road of Memory and Safety' in Itaewon, Yongsan, Seoul, where the Itaewon disaster occurred, and laying flowers, Jo told reporters, "We will not limit the early end of the Yoon Seok-yeol administration to impeachment, but will weaken its power so that it cannot abuse authority."

On the 21st, Jo shared a more detailed stance on 'dead duck' in an interview with SisaIN.

When asked, "Do you mean to impeach the president?" he said, "Impeachment requires 200 seats. It also has to go through the Constitutional Court's decision. We do not exclude impeachment, but we cannot rely solely on that," adding, "When public sentiment turns away, the tone of the media changes, public officials begin to speak out, and then the media criticizes again."

Jo also said, "In that process, the Yoon Seok-yeol administration will become a lame duck before impeachment, and after lame duck, it will become a 'dead duck,'" adding, "The goal is to make President Yoon a politically incompetent figure. President Rhee Syngman resigned before impeachment."